I was really, really tempted to chime in and contribute my two-cents regarding the whole Jian Ghomeshi scandal that is sweeping our great Canadian nation. Then I realized that I would have nothing to add to the conversation and would just be offering my opinion based on hearsay and speculation. And hey, that’s what 9ES is for, am I right?

Instead, I will talk a little about the process that I am employing to build up to the first “proper” RPG that I will be running. This game is going to be the basis of a few articles about how I decided to run my first game, what I want the feel of the game to be, how I hope to achieve it and whatever other stories might come from running an RPG for the first time.

First bit of clarification, I’m talking about pen and paper RPG here, not some new-fangled computer role-playing game. Nor am I referring to bedroom roleplaying. I say “proper” RPG since in the past I used to run a terrible pick-up game that I called “ZOMBIES!!!!!” (and I am showing restraint with the number of exclamation marks employed in the title). I think it’s worth pointing out that I employed the all-caps, multiple exclamation marks titling before the Twilight Creations version of the game came out. Theirs was probably better.

Anyhow, the formula was pretty simple and based heavily on narration. Character creation took about 5 minutes: you would decide what formulaic character from a zombie movie you were, attribute a pre-selected amount of points into various stats, add bonus points that would kick in for “hero mode” (which was when some incredible act would probably save the team and kill your character) and then roll a few D20s on an ever increasingly large list of random items your character might have on them at the time of the zombie outbreak. These items could range from paperclips to a bazooka. The game was nearly always based in a high school and I would force the players to roleplay through a high school lunch hour for about 30 minutes (the goal being to create some character tension between the two dimensional characters; the jock hates the dweeb, the pretty girl is secretly a lesbian, the quiet kid is really a knife expert or whatever else the players came up with). ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

Well, it looks like life is back to normal for the 9to5 (crew). Or is it?

Jon does seem to once again be indulging his more feminine side, but I mean, that’s pretty par for the course too.

This is a little funny because in reality it’s Jon who DMs (Dungeon Master to the layperson) most of the time. Actually, he’s been running a game for myself and a group of friends for something like 5 or 6 years and only now are we apparently close to coming to the actual point of the story.

I recall one instance where he set up a nifty little sidequest involving a lich seeking a mystical object. The party was mostly neutral so we opted to do it. What followed was a quest that took us off the main quest for seriously several months of real time (though only a few days in game time). When we got the mystical object the point was to turn it over to the lich for some great reward. The one good-aligned character attacked the lich, then his in-game brother smashed the mystical object. End of story? The entire part is now under a geas to a goddamned lich. Don’t know what a geas is? Look it up. Then remember that it is owed to an undead immortal sorcerer guy.